Kia Joorabchian has backed the board of West Ham following Alan Curbishley's resignation.
Joorabchian, whose attempt to buy West Ham United in 2006 ended in failure is now working with the club as 'transfer adviser' after a deal was struck between the two parties in an out of court settlement earlier this year - a settlement that prevented the Iranian businessman from suing the club for lost earnings totalling £7.1million relating to the transfer of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.Talking to the BBC, he revealed that he felt sympathy for Curbishley - before accusing him of being out of touch with the modern game.
"I feel for Alan because he's a manager who resigned under pressure," said Joorabchian. "But now the game is so competitive that I think every manager understands that there are three major issues.
"One, you have to succeed in the transfer window. Second, you have show that you have a winning side and thirdly, when you're at a club like West Ham you have to play good football as well because they [the fans] want to see the beautiful game.
"I think it's very sad what happened to West Ham in the last year. This current board left it in the hands of someone they assumed was capable and things went wrong. Now consulting the board, I'd like to see West Ham have a successful season.
"The situation with Alan was that in the last two years he has been the person that has made most of the decisions in regards to the incomings of Boa Morte and Nigel Quashie, Kieron Dyer, Ljungberg etc - the list goes on. He was very much involved in those. It was pretty clear cut.
"I think the board has had a very difficult task this year. If you have a lot of players on high salaries that are not very productive the first stage is to release some of that structure in order to be able to get into the transfer market again.
"The board have to balance the books. When we look at a figure of around £6million for George McCartney and £8million for Anton Ferdinand, it's a very tough number to reject when you think that City bought Argentinian international Pablo Zableta for around £7million. When you look around, it becomes a tough thing for the board to reject."
Joorabchian also gave further insight into his role at West Ham United - a role that the club's board, for reasons unknown, have never seen fit to publicise.
"I'm a consultant to West Ham so don't get involved in board decisions or sit on board meetings," he added. "I'm just an outside adviser who advises them on transfers and other football decisions that they want to make.
"We will discuss the targets they are looking for and potential ways of getting them. Since the Magnusson reign the board realised there were a lot of mistakes made during that period.
"I guess the salaries that were being given and the players brought in were probably not what the board's idea was on taking the club forward. As you can see this year it's been a very costly situation for them having to terminate the contracts of Ljungberg and other players.
"We took a back role in the McCartney transfer, I was personally not involved but my company was. We don't really get involved in masses of players or try to take control of clubs. Our business model is a little bit different, we don't expect the clubs to take a risk as we take the risks - as in the case of Mascherano and Tevez.
"But what is essential is that if you bring in a sporting director or adviser, they have to support the manager - they have to be a team, have a good unit. Rather than the director or consultant being on the board side he should be behind the manager helping and aiding the manager in picking and identifying players."
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